Edgar laughed. I don’t think he’d ever been ordered what to do by anyone besides a judge. The appalled stares from many partygoers let Edgar Thibaud know that Grandpa had not been joking. Edgar shrugged and said, “Okay, fair enough.” A Christmas miracle! Generosity!
Some cousins started to head into the basement as Dash and I went to either side of Grandpa to lead him toward the stairs, and then help him down. “Did you know about this?” I asked Dash. It seemed weird to interrupt the party so early with a movie. I hoped it was an old home movie converted to DVD of Grandpa and his siblings as little ones.
“It’s all been a grand conspiracy,” said Dash.
When we reached the basement apartment, which Mrs. Basil E. kept as a man cave for family members during football and soccer seasons, with a proper bar and enormous television (she didn’t allow TVs in any other room in the house), the TV was already on, with a blank screen. The bar was set up like a movie concession stand, with a popcorn maker and a glass display case of candies like M&M’s, Milk Duds, Junior Mints, and an entire shelf with my favorites—Sno-Caps—tiered in the shape of a Christmas tree.
If I had any doubt what we were about to watch, it was removed when the blanket covering a life-size cardboard cutout next to the TV was removed. It was Helen Mirren as frail, elderly Bess, wearing a silk head scarf tied under her chin, and holding her movie corgi, Scrumpet!
“WHAT?” I shrieked, with all the decibel power of a tween girl getting a personal concert by the world’s biggest boy band.
“Down, Shrilly!” Langston called out from somewhere inside the crowd of people.
My heart was beating so fast, I thought I might die of happiness. “How?” I asked Grandpa.
He said, “My friend whom you know as Mr. Panavision gets these lovely little doodads called screeners, because he’s an awards-season voting guild member. He helped me get the screener and the promotional cutout. But Mr. Panavision has let me know that this is precious intellectual property, and the FBI will be called if the screener winds up in the hands of criminals, so no one give it to Edgar Thibaud or let him down here.”
Mom said, “The movie concession stand is from us, sweetie.”
Dash said, “I arranged the Sno-Caps.”
Langston said, “Poorly. It looks more like a poo pile.”
For everything that was wrong in the world—war, global warming, Grandpa having to move to a nursing home, my lifelong family home being dismantled and probably sold—there was so much that was so right. My brother and my boyfriend bicker-bantering. My dad eating most of the Reese’s Pieces before the other guests could get to them. Mrs. Basil E. holding court over a sea of guests. The smell of popcorn. My grandpa hugging me. All the people I loved most gathered in one room, to watch a queen and her dog.
I’d thought my dream date would be sharing this movie alone in a movie theater with Dash. This cave was so much better. These people were my coven. Merry Christmas, Lily. Your Highness.
—
I loved the movie. I loved the party.
But, priorities.
Eighty-seven screen minutes of that precious nugget Scrumpet, and I needed to be reunited with my dog, immediately.
Certainly Boris’s behavior had improved over the last year—he was down to maybe one or two pinning-a-human-to-the-floors per month, but he was not yet socialized to big parties, so he’d been left at my apartment during the Christmas party. So Dash and I took an early leave of Mrs. Basil E.’s after the movie so we could walk him and I could smother my face in his beastly fur.
After we walked him and I cried, telling Boris how much I loved him and would be honored to get lost in the deep forest surrounding Balmoral Castle with him, Dash and I returned to the apartment so I could give my boyfriend and my dog their Christmas presents. First, I gave Boris a chew toy that he massacred within a minute of receiving. One moment it was a perfectly good Donald Trump doll. The next it was a flying toupee and dismembered body parts.
“That was beautiful, Boris,” Dash told him, patting the satisfied dog’s head. Then Dash crouched down to face Boris on Boris’s level. Using his most queenly Helen Mirren voice to intone Corgi & Bess’s catch phrase, Dash reminded Boris: “?‘Always chew with dignity, dear Scrum.’?”
My Christmas present to Dash was possibly going to make me lose my own dignity, but I tried to muster the courage to go through with it. Before I did, I gave him the easy part of his gift. We sat down next to Oscar, and I handed Dash his first present from under the tree. (Stealing a kiss—or five—from Dash meanwhile.)
I took the Santa hat I’d bought with Dash’s $12.21 Macy’s gift card, and placed it on his head. “Guess,” I said.
Santa Dash held up the present and shook it. “Saltshaker?” he asked. It was clearly the size and shape of a book. “That Snuggie you knew Santa asked himself for? Because Santa doesn’t have enough soft, warm things in his life already?” He looked down at Boris. “I’m not talking about you, softy. I’m partial to Prancer, as you know. No offense.”
Boris licked Dash’s ankle. No offense taken.